A friend has just got married to his childhood sweetheart. One of the wedding gifts is a beautiful Welsh love spoon, but it has no label to indicate who may have sent it. Carved from a dark wood it is about a foot long with a delicate bowl and elaborate carving all along the shaft.
Unlike traditional Welsh love spoons (which have carvings of ivy, hearts or other romantic, entwining images), this spoon is carved with strange random shapes. Looking at the shapes for any length of time is quite disturbing as they seem to shift slightly. Despite being nearly-imperceptible and attributable to an overactive imagination, there are occasional changes in the shapes. Some weeks later the shapes have definitely transformed…
Possibilities
1 The shapes have resolved into figures engaged in an energetic dance. Studied for long enough it is obvious that the figures are genuinely dancing, that is they are changing in form and pattern over time. The figures cavort and dance in all kinds of strange and frightening forms with many sexual encounters occurring between the figures as well as more traditional folk-dance type movements. The figures represent an ancient cult dance used to summon Dark Young of Shub Niggurath. Sure enough, and unless something is done soon, the Dark Young will appear to cause havoc and devastation at the newly-weds home. The sender remains unknown.
2 The shapes have resolved into a representation of the body of a humanoid figure. This body is largely human in appearance but is covered in ivy and other vegetative growths. The face is made up of interlocked leaves and has a very pagan feel to it. The image is that of the Green Man, one of the many forms of Nyarlathotep.
The Green Man was imprisoned in ancient times by certain druids. The owner of the spoon feels drawn towards the Green Man’s burial place: Stonehenge. Once there he feels compelled to destroy the stones that keep Nyarlathotep’s form incarcerated. If he succeeds in destroying the circle, the Green Man will be free once more to reoccupy the woods of Great Britain and from there to toy with the human inhabitants of the island as he did before his imprisonment.
3 The shapes have transformed into a depiction of a tree with markings on its bark. The marking is a simple vertical line crossed at right angles by five more lines. Further research reveals the tree to be a yew and the markings to be the Ogham letter, Idho. Yew trees and Idho were evil omens in Celtic times, often symbolising death.
The newly-wed’s luck changes for the worse: everything goes wrong. Relatives die, close friends develop illnesses, pipes spring a leak, accidents happen and life becomes a misery. The spoon’s owners must pass the spoon on, otherwise they remain cursed forever. Once passed on their life returns to normal and the spoon is once again carved with nothing more than random shapes. But not for long . . .
© Ric Norton
Unlike traditional Welsh love spoons (which have carvings of ivy, hearts or other romantic, entwining images), this spoon is carved with strange random shapes. Looking at the shapes for any length of time is quite disturbing as they seem to shift slightly. Despite being nearly-imperceptible and attributable to an overactive imagination, there are occasional changes in the shapes. Some weeks later the shapes have definitely transformed…
Possibilities
1 The shapes have resolved into figures engaged in an energetic dance. Studied for long enough it is obvious that the figures are genuinely dancing, that is they are changing in form and pattern over time. The figures cavort and dance in all kinds of strange and frightening forms with many sexual encounters occurring between the figures as well as more traditional folk-dance type movements. The figures represent an ancient cult dance used to summon Dark Young of Shub Niggurath. Sure enough, and unless something is done soon, the Dark Young will appear to cause havoc and devastation at the newly-weds home. The sender remains unknown.
2 The shapes have resolved into a representation of the body of a humanoid figure. This body is largely human in appearance but is covered in ivy and other vegetative growths. The face is made up of interlocked leaves and has a very pagan feel to it. The image is that of the Green Man, one of the many forms of Nyarlathotep.
The Green Man was imprisoned in ancient times by certain druids. The owner of the spoon feels drawn towards the Green Man’s burial place: Stonehenge. Once there he feels compelled to destroy the stones that keep Nyarlathotep’s form incarcerated. If he succeeds in destroying the circle, the Green Man will be free once more to reoccupy the woods of Great Britain and from there to toy with the human inhabitants of the island as he did before his imprisonment.
3 The shapes have transformed into a depiction of a tree with markings on its bark. The marking is a simple vertical line crossed at right angles by five more lines. Further research reveals the tree to be a yew and the markings to be the Ogham letter, Idho. Yew trees and Idho were evil omens in Celtic times, often symbolising death.
The newly-wed’s luck changes for the worse: everything goes wrong. Relatives die, close friends develop illnesses, pipes spring a leak, accidents happen and life becomes a misery. The spoon’s owners must pass the spoon on, otherwise they remain cursed forever. Once passed on their life returns to normal and the spoon is once again carved with nothing more than random shapes. But not for long . . .
© Ric Norton
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